Summary This position is located within the Department of Veterans Affairs Debt Management Center (DMC), within the Office of Finance, Office of Management. The primary purpose of this position is to provide elevated technical, training, and process documentation support as well as processing complex financial tasks related to debt collections, to include performing account research, responding to customer inquiries, and processing financial transactions. Responsibilities Explaining and training processes and procedures including processing financial transactions, conducting account research, and writing clear and customer-friendly responses to customer inquiries. Mentoring employees including providing on the job training for new staff and recalibration for existing staff. Demonstrating and modeling exceptional customer service skills. Assisting employees with questions related to technical and financial transactions, policies and procedures, and master of hard and soft skills. Identifying, tracking and reporting trends, training, and technical needs of the team. Reviewing and updating documentation including standard operating procedures, job aids, pattern paragraphs, and other guidance. Serving as a technical advisor for management, provides in depth research and reporting for special situations or accounts. Analyzing financial accounts related to incoming requests and assesses customer and stakeholder needs, provides assistance and resolves problems. Reviewing and responding to complex or difficult cases unable to be resolved at a lower level including emotionally charged or hostile inquiries. Placing outbound calls to customers when needed for service recovery or clarification of information received. Analyzing account transaction histories in multiple financial systems to calculate the financial transactions required to adjust debt account balances. Submitting financial transactions for authorization according to established procedures and ensures appropriate supporting documentation is stored in DMC's document repository. Responding to customer inquiries using proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Develops inquiry responses that are organized, succinct. Uses pattern paragraphs where possible and uses nonstandard paragraphs where necessary. Communicating and collaborating with the authorizer team or other VA offices to resolve questions/disagreements or when assistance is needed to process financial transactions. Monitoring assigned accounts, including following up with other VA offices, to ensure customer requests receive responses and/or action within service level standards and escalates accounts to management when timeliness or other concerns arise. Work Schedule: Hours for this position will be established between 6:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. Telework Available: Available (Up to and including 100% telework). Regular on-site requirements at agency worksite (Ft. Snelling, MN) apply. Duty Location Status: Location Negotiable After Selection Title/PD#: Financial Administrative Specialist (Senior Accounts Receivable Tech) GS - 9; PD 41782A Promotion Potential: GS-11 Time-in-grade: Applicants who are/were federal employees and have held a GS grade any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements. For a GS-09 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-07 level. To support your claim of time in grade, you must submit your most recent appointment, promotion, or within grade increase SF-50 (not an award or general adjustment SF-50). Some applicants may have to submit more than one SF-50 to demonstrate their eligibility. See the required documents section for more information. Physical Requirements: The work is primarily sedentary although some slight physical effort may be required. Placement Policy: The posting of this announcement does not obligate management to fill a vacancy or vacancies by promotion. The position may be filled by reassignment, change to lower grade, transfer, appointment, or reinstatement. Management may use any one or any combination of these methods to fill the position. Special Employment Consideration: VA encourages persons with disabilities to apply, including those eligible for hiring under 5 CFR 213.3102(u), Schedule A, appointment of persons with disabilities [i.e., intellectual disabilities, severe physical disabilities, or psychiatric disabilities], and/or disabled Veterans with a compensable service-connected disability of 30% or more. Please contact the special placement coordinator or the human resources specialist listed on this vacancy for more information regarding applying for consideration under schedule A or as a 30% disabled Veteran. Requirements Conditions of Employment Qualifications Specialized Experience: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 05/20/2024. The Office of Personnel Management's group coverage qualification standards, associated individual occupational requirements (IOR), and individual qualification standards covering white collar occupations in the Federal competitive service can be found Here. To qualify for the GS-09 To qualify, applicants must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade (GS-07) in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Specialized experience is defined as: (1) Researching and processing financial account transactions according to procedures within a given timeframe; (2) Maintaining awareness of program goals and objectives, work processes, program risks, and administrative operations to understand the relationship between various levels of authority within the organization; (3) Analyzing policies and procedures and determining appropriate course of action; (4) Operating computer systems common to VA and DMC as well as ability to use programs such as Excel, Word, and PowerPoint; AND (5) Using written and oral communication to present and document information. OR Applicants may substitute education for experience at grade GS-09. Applicants may substitute education for experience with an awarded master's or equivalent graduate degree (such as an LL. B or J.D.) from an accredited college or university, or two full years (36 semester hours or 54 quarter hours) of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to such a degree. This graduate degree or education must demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities to do the work of this position. If you are claiming to qualify based on your education, your application must include an official or unofficial copy of graduate level transcripts that demonstrate this information. OR Applicants may combine education and experience to qualify for grade GS-09. Applicants may substitute a combination of graduate education and specialized experience to qualify for grade GS-9. If you have some, but not all, of the graduate education described above AND less than one full year of the specialized experience described above, you may qualify by combining the amount of creditable education and experience that you do have. Only graduate education in excess of the amount required for the next lower grade level may be used to qualify applicants for positions at grade GS-9. To calculate, first identify the education you have earned beyond your first year of study as a percentage of a total of two years of study. Then identify the number of months of specialized experience you have as a percentage of 12 months. Add the two percentages. The total must equal at least 100 percent in order to be qualifying. For example, an applicant who has 27 semester hours of graduate level education (i.e, 50% of graduate education required beyond the first 18 credit hours earned) and who has 6 months of creditable specialized experience (i.e., 50% of the one year of specialized experience required) would meet 100% and thus be qualified for the position. Note: Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; spiritual; community; student; social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge and skills, and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience you document, to include volunteer experience Education A transcript must be submitted with your application if you are basing all or part of your qualifications on education. Note: Only education or degrees recognized by the U.S. Department of Education from accredited colleges, universities, schools, or institutions may be used to qualify for Federal employment. You can verify your education here: Here. All education claimed by applicants will be verified by the appointing agency accordingly. If you are using foreign education to meet qualification requirements, you must send a Certificate of Foreign Equivalency with your transcript in order to receive credit for that education. For further information, visit: Here. Applications submitted without the required supporting documents will not be accepted. An unofficial transcript; statement from the institution's registrar, dean, or other appropriate official; or equivalent documentation is acceptable at the time of application. Education submitted must be appropriately accredited by an accredited body recognized by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education. For additional information, refer to the U.S. Department of Education web site at http://www.ed.gov/. Additional Information The Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP) provide eligible displaced Federal competitive service employees with selection priority over other candidates for competitive service vacancies. To be qualified you must submit appropriate documentation and be found well-qualified for this vacancy. A well-qualified candidate is defined as meeting all of the minimum qualification standards and eligibility requirements as well as possessing skills that clearly exceed the minimum qualifications requirements for this position. Information about ICTAP and CTAP eligibility can be found Here. VA supports the use of telework as a way to help attract and retain talented individuals in public service, increase worker productivity, and better prepare the agency to operate during emergencies. This position may be authorized for telework. Telework eligibility will be discussed during the interview process. Remote Work Agreement Eligibility- This position is eligible to voluntarily enter into an agreement for remote work (full-time telework) which establishes your duty station and locality pay to your home address. While this will allow you to work from home full time, you will need to travel to agency worksite in St. Paul, MN to attend new employee orientation and portions of the training program. This agreement is not a condition of employment, you must voluntarily agree to abide by the DMC telework policy and will travel to the agency worksite as required (with proper notice) on-site teambuilding/training or any established business need of the agency. This job opportunity announcement may be used to fill additional vacancies. If you are unable to apply online view the following link for information regarding an Alternate Application. Notice to Applicants: It is the policy of the Government not to deny employment simply because an individual has been unemployed or has had financial difficulties that have arisen through no fault of the individual. Information about an individual's employment experience will be used only to determine the person's qualifications and to assess his or her relative level of knowledge, skills, and abilities. Although an individual's personal conduct may be relevant in any employment decision, including conduct during periods of unemployment or evidence of dishonesty in handling financial matters, financial difficulty that has arisen through no fault of the individual will generally not itself be the basis of an unfavorable suitability or fitness determination.